cpadmin@publicbroadcasting.netNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Stephen Thompson is an editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he writes the advice column The Good Listener, fusses over the placement of commas and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the weekly NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk.In 1993, Thompson founded The Onion's entertainment section, The A.V. Club, which he edited until December 2004. In the years since, he has provided music-themed commentaries for the NPR programs Weekend Edition Sunday, All Things Considered and Morning Edition, on which he earned the distinction of becoming the first member of the NPR Music staff ever to sing on an NPR newsmagazine. (Later, the magic of AutoTune transformed him from a 12th-rate David Archuleta into a fourth-rate Cher.)NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Stephen ThompsonSat, 06 Aug 2016 11:55:51 +0000Stephen Thompsonhttp://wamc.org
Stephen ThompsonMTV Looks To Capitalize On Nostalgia With New 'Classic' Channelhttp://wamc.org/post/mtv-looks-capitalize-nostalgia-new-classic-channel
145152 as http://wamc.orgMon, 01 Aug 2016 20:27:00 +0000MTV Looks To Capitalize On Nostalgia With New 'Classic' ChannelStephen ThompsonSometime tomorrow, Linda Holmes and I will break down Monday night's Grammys telecast in a Small Batch edition of Pop Culture Happy Hour. And, for a variety of reasons, we're not likely to spend much time on the awards themselves.The headlines there, after all, aren't shocking: Taylor Swift's 1989 won Album Of The Year, beating out Kendrick Lamar's more creatively ambitious and critically heralded To Pimp A Butterfly. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk" won Record Of The Year, which was hard to dispute, while Song Of The Year went to Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud," which was all too easy to dispute, if you're me. Meghan Trainor won Best New Artist, while the year's heavily nominated standard-bearers in rock (Alabama Shakes), country (Chris Stapleton), and hip-hop (Lamar) largely dominated their fields.This Grammys transcended the usual awards-show industry showcase in two performances, set back to back in a manner that proved almost disorientingly powerful. First, the cast ofFor 20 Minutes, The Grammys Transcend The Awards-Show Blahshttp://wamc.org/post/20-minutes-grammys-transcend-awards-show-blahs
133886 as http://wamc.orgTue, 16 Feb 2016 09:20:11 +0000For 20 Minutes, The Grammys Transcend The Awards-Show BlahsStephen ThompsonWhen Gene Demby and I were planning this week's sports discussion, we didn't say, "We should sit down Monday to discuss the U.S. Open." We'd planned to discuss Serena Williams, the most dominant player in women's tennis, who was expected to complete a rare Grand Slam in Saturday's final. (To win a Grand Slam, a player must win the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in a single calendar year. The last woman to accomplish the feat was Steffi Graf in 1988, though Williams had technically won all four majors in a row leading up to this year's U.S. Open.)But Williams ended up losing in a shocking upset Friday, falling to unranked Italian Roberta Vinci. This set up an all-Italian final match between Vinci and fellow underdog Flavia Pennetta, who'd shocked another dominant player, the No. 2-ranked Simona Halep, en route to the final. Suddenly, what looked like a history-making coronation was a battle of little-known underdogs — two women who'd known each other sinceThe Giant Foam Finger: If Serena Williams Loses, Is It Still The U.S. Open?http://wamc.org/post/giant-foam-finger-if-serena-williams-loses-it-still-us-open
123753 as http://wamc.orgTue, 15 Sep 2015 01:13:25 +0000The Giant Foam Finger: If Serena Williams Loses, Is It Still The U.S. Open?Stephen ThompsonWe get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and alongside the shipment of cat sedatives that have us pondering just how often we order shipments of cat sedatives is a slew of smart questions about how music fits into our lives. This time around: thoughts on sedating children (not cats) via music.Sara M. writes via email: "I'm in search of a good set of lullabies that 1) aren't cloying and annoying; and 2) aren't lullaby-themed covers of pop songs. My standby is Dave Matthews' 'Baby,' but I'm hoping to expand. They don't need to have sleep- or child-focused lyrics, but they need to be calming and soothing. Any suggestions?"[Before we get started, a quick note: If you have any music-related problems you need solved by The Good Listener, email Stephen Thompson at goodlistener@npr.org! We're always looking for suggestions.]There will come a time in your life as a parent when your own tastes are largely irrelevant. When that time comes, you may well write me letters, all, "Why don't my kids loveThe Good Listener: Where Are All The Great Lullabies?http://wamc.org/post/good-listener-where-are-all-great-lullabies
119886 as http://wamc.orgSat, 18 Jul 2015 20:00:58 +0000The Good Listener: Where Are All The Great Lullabies?Stephen ThompsonWe get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and alongside the weekly magazine that seems to show up at least four times per week is a slew of smart questions about how music fits into our lives. This time around: thoughts on the playlists at amusement parks.Donna B. writes via email: "Why is it that the music I heard when I went to Six Flags Over Georgia as an adolescent — REO Speedwagon, Journey, Supertramp, et al, all of which was contemporary Top 40 then — is the exact same music I hear when I go to amusement parks today, 30 years later? It's like the soundtrack to theme parks got frozen in time exactly in my youth, and it creeps me out."My first thought was to draw a parallel between amusement parks and their less-expensive cousin, the county fair — to suggest that "county fair" has become a genre unto itself, synonymous with the '70s and '80s classic-rock bands that so often play there.But I think there's another, better reason: That rock 'n' roll theme-park soundtrack is programmedThe Good Listener: Why Do Amusement Parks Still Crank Songs From The '80s?http://wamc.org/post/good-listener-why-do-amusement-parks-still-crank-songs-80s
116553 as http://wamc.orgSat, 30 May 2015 18:34:07 +0000The Good Listener: Why Do Amusement Parks Still Crank Songs From The '80s?Stephen ThompsonWe get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and alongside the package shipped Next Day Air but addressed to the guy who moved out of our house eight years ago is a slew of smart questions about how music fits into our lives. This week: deep thoughts on beach balls at concerts.Margaret H.W. writes via email: "Why do music festivals seem to hand out beach balls to drunk, high 19-year-olds? If I would like to listen to music WITHOUT beach balls, what are my anti-beach-ball options? CAN I DEFLATE THE BEACH BALLS?"Can I just passively refuse to pass the beach balls back up until they collect around my feet in one incriminating pool? How coldly can I glare at the people who try to resurrect the beach balls I've silently condemned to the ground?"And what, generally, can one do to bridge the generational gap between Old Youngs like myself, who attend music festivals to get a bargain deal on seeing eight favorite bands in one fell swoop, and the Just Plain Youngs, who appear to be there MORE to smokeThe Good Listener: Can I Deflate The Beach Balls At Concerts?http://wamc.org/post/good-listener-can-i-deflate-beach-balls-concerts
115631 as http://wamc.orgSat, 16 May 2015 21:01:44 +0000The Good Listener: Can I Deflate The Beach Balls At Concerts?Stephen ThompsonTranscript AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: At NPR Music, they're wrapping up the year the best way they know how, with their hotly contested list of their 50 favorite albums of 2013. Now, all this week, we'll get a peak of that list from our in-house experts, including NPR Music writer and editor Stephen Thompson, whose beat is the ever amorphous indie pop, which - Stephen, what exactly is that these days?STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: I have absolutely no idea. It used to mean accessible but unpopular.CORNISH: OK. So...(LAUGHTER)THOMPSON: But even there - even those lines have gotten blurry.CORNISH: All right.THOMPSON: It's rock. It's pop. It's folk. It's engineered to be unpopular and yet it's popular. I don't know what to say.CORNISH: OK. So would Vampire Weekend count?THOMPSON: You know, I think so. I think they're definitely on the popular end of that spectrum but also very accessible. Wonderful record.(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STEP")THOMPSON: (Singing) Back, back, way back, I used to front likeIndie-Pop Albums That Make The Cut Are More Than Mere Collectionshttp://wamc.org/post/indie-pop-albums-make-cut-are-more-mere-collections
79563 as http://wamc.orgTue, 10 Dec 2013 21:29:00 +0000Indie-Pop Albums That Make The Cut Are More Than Mere CollectionsStephen ThompsonFew bands blend showmanship and poignancy quite like The Avett Brothers: The band's songs reflect thoughtfully on life and death and love, while toggling between swoonily pretty roots-pop ballads and frenetic, barnstorming punk-bluegrass hybrids. Led by multi-talented North Carolina brothers Seth and Scott Avett, the group digs especially deep on last year's album The Carpenter, which explores mortality and hope in the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis for the young daughter of bassist Bob Crawford. But playfulness and warmth still win out; in The Avett Brothers' music, they always do.Hear the band perform as part of the 2013 Newport Folk Festival, recorded live on Saturday, July 27 in Newport, R.I.Set List"Live And Die""Go To Sleep""Down With The Shine""Will You Return?""Laundry Room""Old Joe Clark""At The Beach""Head Full Of Doubt / Road Full Of Promise""Pretty Girl From Chile""Just A Closer Walk With Thee""Fireball Mail""Gimmeakiss""Talk On Indolence""Slight Figure Of Speech""Life""NoThe Avett Brothers, Live In Concert: Newport Folk 2013http://wamc.org/post/avett-brothers-live-concert-newport-folk-2013
70223 as http://wamc.orgMon, 29 Jul 2013 12:53:13 +0000The Avett Brothers, Live In Concert: Newport Folk 2013Stephen Thompsonhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCadcBR95oU Click the audio link on this page to hear The Good Listener columnist Stephen Thompson and Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin discuss the intricacies of wedding music — where and when to play everything from sacred music to Salt N Pepa's "Push It." (The column below originally appeared on June 20, 2013.)We get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and amid the 30-plus copies of the latest CD by Jordanian singer Zade is a slew of questions about how music fits into our lives — and, this week, the challenge of whittling down a list of songs to play at a wedding.Kim writes: "I'm getting married in July, and the DJ is allowing my fiancé and me to pick 10 must-play songs. I am struggling with this. Every time I make a list, depending on my mood, it's always something different — about the only thing that's consistent is Van Morrison's 'Into the Mystic' and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You.' Any advice on how to narrowThe Good Listener: How Do You Pick The Songs For Your Wedding?http://wamc.org/post/good-listener-how-do-you-pick-songs-your-wedding
68638 as http://wamc.orgSun, 07 Jul 2013 14:55:21 +0000The Good Listener: How Do You Pick The Songs For Your Wedding?Stephen Thompsonhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb5qqoQgPlk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUx5z9O2ZGk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZk2LYsBIi8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFURd_EOIuU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk_wVO7NBMQ All week, Morning Edition has been examining how coffee fits into modern life, which led us to look into the many ways the drink's trembling tendrils have reached into popular music. With the Beastie Boys taking their "sugar with coffee and cream," Carly Simon finding "clouds in my coffee," and countless singers using black coffee as a metaphor for a life in need of a swift kick, it was actually tough to narrow a caffeinated playlist down to just 10 selections.This week, Alt.Latino is also looking at how the beverage has inspired music in coffee-producing countries. But in the meantime, for addicts and abstainers alike — as well as we honorary imbibers who subsist on a steady diet of Diet Coke via IV drip — here are 10 more coffee songs, by artists from Bach to Dethklok toJittery Jams: 10 Songs For Coffee Lovershttp://wamc.org/post/jittery-jams-10-songs-coffee-lovers
63058 as http://wamc.orgThu, 25 Apr 2013 01:52:00 +0000Jittery Jams: 10 Songs For Coffee LoversStephen ThompsonA playful, electronics-infused Mexican rock band, Café Tacvba found itself in an unusual spot on the Stubb's stage at SXSW on March 13: namely, bookended by Nick Cave and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, both of whom roll around seductively in far seedier corners of rock 'n' roll. Singing in Spanish to a largely English-language crowd, singer Rubén Albarrán had to get his points across through giddiness-induced goodwill, not to mention the live-wire showmanship of a rock star with a 20-year pedigree.Which isn't to say Café Tacvba is strictly lighthearted; these guys understand their role as cultural ambassadors, and deftly mix serious politics into songs that just happen to bounce and surge with chant-along, jump-up-and-down urgency. El Objeto Antes Llamado Disco, the Tacvbos' first album in five years, finds them polishing that mix of heavy and light, of introspection and extroversion, until it shines.Of course, it never hurts that Albarrán — one of Mexico's greatest and most beloved frontmen — stillCafé Tacvba, Live In Concert: SXSW 2013http://wamc.org/post/caf-tacvba-live-concert-sxsw-2013
61619 as http://wamc.orgSat, 06 Apr 2013 18:25:56 +0000Café Tacvba, Live In Concert: SXSW 2013Stephen ThompsonListen to Stephen Thompson's conversation with Audie Cornish on All Things Considered by clicking the audio link.The South by Southwest music festival kicked off Tuesday with the first of five straight nights of music overload: The clubs, makeshift music venues and front porches of Austin, Texas, were overrun with little-known discoveries-in-waiting and big names alike, as well as tens of thousands of fans who have flocked to the city in search of epiphanies.Finding a prevailing trend at SXSW isn't easy; the festival is like 50 events in one, so it's possible to see nothing but hip-hop, or big names, or heavy metal, or bands from overseas. There's one clear trend in independent music: A lot of the biggest artists have shed the intimacy of bedroom recordings in pursuit of a grandiose, joyous, room-filling sound.My favorite young band of the festival's opening night fits this bill. Mother Falcon, a 17-piece rock orchestra of sorts, is based in Austin and can't help but send huge soundsBaby Bands, Pop Stars And Room-Filling Joy: What To Expect At SXSW 2013http://wamc.org/post/baby-bands-pop-stars-and-room-filling-joy-what-expect-sxsw-2013
59791 as http://wamc.orgWed, 13 Mar 2013 20:50:00 +0000Baby Bands, Pop Stars And Room-Filling Joy: What To Expect At SXSW 2013Stephen ThompsonWith the conclusion of Sunday night's ceremony, Linda Holmes and I have now live-blogged fully one-eleventh of the Grammy Awards' 55 annual incarnations. Below is our original post and an archived live blog of the telecast:For the fifth straight year, whether we're marveling at Taylor Swift's capacity for surprise or trying to figure out what to type during the combined 37 minutes of Bruno Mars performances, we're here to serve your reading-along needs. So for those who keep one eye on a TV, one eye on your Twitter feed and one eye on our live blog, you won't miss a thing.Linda and I appeared with Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday, where we answer some of Scott's burning Grammy questions — about the ever-vexing difference between Song of the Year and Record of the Year, about fearless predictions, about how the Grammys can possibly give out so few statues over the course of a four-hour telecast, and more. And, because Scott loves Katy Perry the way I love warm spring days, hePlay-By-Play: Read Along With The Grammy Awards http://wamc.org/post/sunday-8-pm-et-spend-grammy-night-staring-screens-us
57478 as http://wamc.orgFri, 08 Feb 2013 20:49:00 +0000Play-By-Play: Read Along With The Grammy Awards Stephen Thompsonhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rnPHlOHb7g Even before Thanksgiving, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Brenda Lee were reborn for the holiday season, with classic songs of theirs — "White Christmas," "The Christmas Song," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" — materializing anew like Frosty the Snowman himself. Like egg nog and advent calendars, their seasonal tunes pop up everywhere for a month and then disappear, only to be repackaged and resold 11 months later.For millions of people, those songs signify the season, but for me — for my memories of childhood in the late 1970s — they can't touch one of the most persistently reissued holiday albums of all time. Christmas With The Chipmunks has sold millions of copies in the last half-century, and it gets reissued in some form or another every year, usually with bonus tracks and new songs to add to the din of the season for generations of beleaguered parents.The Chipmunks — Alvin, Simon and Theodore — were created by Ross Bagdasarian Sr.,Another Year, Another 'Christmas With The Chipmunks'http://wamc.org/post/hail-chipmunks-holiday-classic-re-revisited
54480 as http://wamc.orgMon, 24 Dec 2012 20:22:00 +0000Another Year, Another 'Christmas With The Chipmunks'Stephen ThompsonThis Sunday will mark the 16th annual installment of "Chicken Bowl," my Super Bowl party, which doubles as a grand fried-chicken-eating contest. As many as 80 friends, coworkers, enablers and hangers-on will cram into my long-suffering house for this noble occasion.But even with all the extravagances I've cobbled together to keep them happy — large TVs, vintage arcade machines, working toilets — there has never been a shred of doubt that chicken is king.I spend more at Popeye's on this particular Sunday than I spend on my wardrobe in a year, so great is the demand. Even vegetarians are both welcome and well-fed at Chicken Bowl, though I insist that they be cordoned off from the rest of the party and forced to watch "tofutball," a meatless football substitute in which slightly built men strike each other gently with pillows.Chicken Bowl began back in 1997, as a way to combine my love of football with my love of sitting still and eating fried chicken while watching football. But over theThis One's For The Chicken: A Super Bowl Party With A Purposehttp://wamc.org/post/ones-chicken-super-bowl-party-purpose
1373 as http://wamc.orgSat, 04 Feb 2012 11:49:00 +0000This One's For The Chicken: A Super Bowl Party With A Purpose